| HappySqurriel said: I do have some practical experience with AI, and while what you said is true I think you're overstating the importance of processing power for AI in the vast majority of games. In most games the majority of CPU processing power goes towards preparing data for the GPU (including managing the scenegraph, performing animation, and so on), and AI tends to be a much smaller consideration (with a large portion of the processing power going towards interpreting a scripting language which the AI scripts are written in). Very few games actually have as many objects being manipulated through AI as you suggest (in most cases any objects far enough away from the player are static), and most of the intelligent interaction provided by the AI in PS3/XBox 360/PC games is produced from more complicated scripts and not through increased processing power; this means that they are entirely possible on the Wii. I have to agree with ookaze that AI was a bad choice for a shortcomming of the Wii not having the additional processing power of the PS3/XBox 360 ... Physics would have been a much better choice but, being that the two of the most interesting physics games are for the Wii and most gamers probably can't tell the difference between a poor simulation using ODE and a much better simulation using a more advanced physics engine, I'm not sure there is a big issue with this. |
I agree with your first bolded statement regarding current console games. I brought this particular issue up because the poster kept using PC game examples, many of which are RTS. AI is one example, but the more general example is object management, which includes spending a lot of time preparing work for the GPU. AI tends to become a CPU resource issue primarily in RTS games where hundreds of independently controlled objects are moving onscreen. It can also become an issue in an RPG like Oblivion where the actions of many remote NPCs has to be tracked over a period of "game time". I have been playing Oblivion in one city, went to "sleep", only to awake and have a dialog proclaim that a critical NPC had "died" in another city and that I would not be able to complete a certain question. That sort of playing-out of remote activities can eat a good amount of CPU time if enough of them have to managed.
Your second bolded statement has nothing to do with RTS games, which tend to use an isometric view of the playing field, but I understand what you're driving at.
The point of my response was to give an example where having more CPU power could potentially make a difference in what was possible in some games. This is obviously a generalized argument and can only be applied in specific instances. As you probably noticed in my original post, I stated this to be true.
